The Medium
directed and designed by
John Pascoe
 
 
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'This war-torn and vigorous production of The Medium is worth seeing for John Pascoe's direction and set design alone.'
Charleston City Paper, June 2011
Act I
Monica (Jennifer Aylmer) tells Toby (Gregg Mozgala) to prepare for a séance.
photo: David Spirakes
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'It doesn't matter whether or not you care much for Menotti: either the man or the musician. There remain two performances of The Medium to go, and – if you love opera – you owe it to yourself to see this remarkable production.'
Charleston Today, June 2011
Act I
Toby (Gregg Mozgala) kneels, gazing adoringly at Monica (Jennifer Aylmer) as she sews.
photo: David Spirakes
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'John Pascoe's stage direction in itself justifies the price of admission. It is simply brilliant: economical in its use of space, dramatically adroit, suggestive, subtle and lurid at exactly the right moments.'
Charleston City Paper, June 2011
Act I
Toby (Gregg Mozgala) sits devotedly at Monica's feet (Jennifer Aylmer).
photo: David Spirakes
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'Director John Pascoe set The Medium in 1946, the year it was written, but amid the rubble of postwar Europe. The exhausted Flora (Barbara Dever) became a scrounger, picking up furniture left in the streets and trading spurious séances for money to buy precious food.'
Opera News, Sept 2011
Act I
Toby (Gregg Mozgala) and Monica (Jennifer Aylmer) join Madame Flora (Barbara Dever) in storing the furniture that she has stolen.
photo: David Spirakes
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'Madame Flora has set herself up in the remains of an industrial building whose steel beams hang twisted from above. When massive doors at the rear are opened, a battered skyline looms. Madame Flora becomes no mere crook, but an ageing woman struggling for survival after Armageddon.'
Charlotte Observer, May 2011
Act I
Monica (Jennifer Aylmer) helps Madame Flora (Barbara Dever) check that all of the 'supernatural' tricks are working before the séance begins.
photo: David Spirakes
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'The aftermath of the Second World War – the world in which the première of The Medium took place in 1946 – is powerfully evoked through Pascoe's stage and costume designs.'
Charleston City Paper, June 2011
Act I
Mr Gobineau (Stephen Bryant) helps his wife Mrs Gobineau (Caitlin Lynch) as they arrive for the séance.
photo: David Spirakes
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'John Pascoe, the stage director and designer of Spoleto's revival, makes the story compelling again. This is The Medium writ large.'
Charlotte Observer, May 2011
Act I: "Good evening. Are you Mrs Nolan?"
Madame Flora (Barbara Dever) welcomes a new – and evidently very rich – client, Mrs Nolan (Jennifer Feinstein).
photo: David Spirakes
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'Caitlin Lynch as Mrs Gobineau was marvellous in her first-act narrative of her child's death – the scene was well-executed and genuinely moving'
Charleston City Paper, June 2011
Act I: "I was not far away, cutting some lilacs for the house. I never heard a sound …"
Mr Gobineau (Stephen Bryant) comforts Mrs Gobineau (Caitlin Lynch as she tells how their little boy drowned in the garden pond.
photo: David Spirakes
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'John Pascoe directed and designed the sets and costumes, and captured the claustrophobic nature of the work, entirely set in Madame Flora's tawdry parlour. To present the smoke and mirrors of her trade as actual visual elements was a canny touch.'
New York Times, June 2011
Act I
Mrs Nolan (Jennifer Feinstein) gazes at her reflection in the decaying mirrored walls.
photo: David Spirakes
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'Menotti's operas, in the hands of truly exceptional and original artists, can indeed rise above their limitations. And that's just what happened in Spoleto Festival's The Medium. First and foremost, there's designer–director John Pascoe's supremely imaginative and often startlingly effective stage direction and design.'
Charleston Today, June 2011
Act I
Madam Flora (Barbara Dever) contacts the dead son of Mr and Mrs Gobineau (Stephen Bryant and Caitlin Lynch).
photo: David Spirakes
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'Gian Carlo Menotti lives on in the new production of The Medium … The world- renowned director and designer John Pascoe, is responsible for bringing this story to life.'
The Post & Courier, May 2011
Act I: "I don't understand.Doodly, Doodly, don't go away …"
Mrs Nolan (Jennifer Feinstein) collapses in shock as Madame Flora (Barbara Dever) summons up an apparition of her dead daughter.
photo: David Spirakes
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'Barbara Dever's Madame Flora, was a hulking presence, vocally and physically. Yet as she grew unhinged by an unexplainable turn in her séance, Dever let her weakness and weariness show through. The more desperate she became, the more pitiful she was.'
Charlotte Observer, May 2011
Act 1: "No, no, you don't understand. A hand touched me in the dark …"
Madame Flora (Barbara Dever) accuses the Gobbineaus (Stephen Bryant and Caitlin Lynch) of touching her during the séance.
photo: David Spirakes
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'Monica's "Black Swan" sounded tender but not dreamy, and Toby's yearning for her had sexual passion. Flora kicked him out not because he refused to admit he'd played a prank but because he might sweep Monica away.'
Opera News, Sept 2011
Act I: "The sun has fallen and it lies in blood./The moon is weaving bandages of gold …"
Madame Flora (Barbara Dever) and Monica (Jennifer Aylmer) are joined by Toby (Gregg Mozgala) as they sing the lullaby 'The Black Swan'.
photo: David Spirakes
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'As Monica, soprano Jennifer Aylmer was an absolute delight – serving as the opera's sole (and tenuous) link to sanity and good sense. Toby's … strangled efforts to express his feelings for her made for this production's most powerfully moving (even tear-jerking) moments … His physical gestures and pain-wracked facial expressions were worth a thousand words.'
Charleston Today, June 2011
Act II
Toby (Gregg Mozgala) is comforted by Monica (Jennifer Aylmer).
photo: David Spirakes
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'Instead of casting Monica, Flora's daughter and accomplice, as the usual ingénue, Pascoe makes her less petite but more soulful. For the mute Toby, Flora's other accomplice, Pascoe has bypassed the typical lithe dancer-type to enlist an actor who has magnetism but also a physical disability. Toby's every movement becomes charged.'
Charleston Today, June 2011
Act IIToby (Gregg Mozgala) and Monica (Jennifer Aylmer) kiss.
photo: David Spirakes
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'Even though Menotti gave the mute no words to say or sing, actor Gregg Mozgala – who has cerebral palsy – spoke volumes through the yearning in his eyes and the struggling fervour of his movement.'
Charlotte Observer, May 2011
Act II: "Toby, I want you to know that you have the most beautiful voice in the world …"
Monica (Jennifer Aylmer) expresses her love for the mute Toby (Gregg Mozgala).
photo: David Spirakes
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'The set's elaborate and fantasy-ridden trappings positively reeked of postwar squalor and decay … Its details – both within and from without – were surreally à propos to the story: a pile of rubble off to one side, a grimy statuette of the Virgin Mary ringed by cockeyed candles, and the dim, ravaged cityscape beyond the doors.'
Charleston Today, June 2011
Act II
Madam Flora (Barbara Dever) calls for the terrified Toby (Gregg Mozgala).
photo: David Spirakes
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'Barbara Dever makes a strong entrance as Madame Flora into this crumbling world. Her character, too, is on the verge of collapse; powerfully sung, her depiction of Madame Flora was convincing throughout.'
Charleston City Paper, June 2011
Act II: "It was you, wasn't it?"
Madame Flora (Barbara Dever) furiously accuses Toby (Gregg Mozgala) of staging the incident during the séance.
photo: David Spirakes
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'Pascoe told me in our pre-festival chat that Gregg Mozgala is an aspiring actor born with a fairly mild, but still profoundly limiting case of cerebral palsy. His presence as Toby makes for a totally brilliant (and magical) casting coup. The result speaks for itself.'
Charleston Today, June 2011
Act IIMadame Flora (Barbara Dever) tries to reassure the (justly) terrified Toby (Gregg Mozgala).
photo: David Spirakes
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'The set, designed by Pascoe, reflected the physical reality of Madam Flora's world. Jagged shards of metal plunged through the roof, reminding us of the ruin outside. So when an inexplicable spiritual event broke through her cynical veneer, she collapsed in fear of this unknown force. Dever brought pathos to the character, and her bullying had a frightened edge'
Opera News, June 2011
Act II: "Afraid, am I afraid? Madame Flora afraid!"
Madame Flora (Barbara Dever) is shocked to discover that she is afraid.
photo: David Spirakes
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'Taking complete control over set and costume design, director John Pascoe has transported Gian Carlo Menotti's most successful opera to a surreal, postwar setting that resonates wonderfully with the spiritualism and guilt that haunt the composer's libretto and score.'
The CLog, Nov 2008
Act II
Wielding a pistol, Madame Flora (Barbara Dever) desperately searches for whomever or whatever touched her during her fake séance.
photo: David Spirakes
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'Meanwhile, bullet holes in the walls let in light from the outside, forcing Flora to face the world she feared. "The dead don't come back," she cries piteously, but in vain: the ineradicable memories of World War Two proved that they did.'
Opera News, Sept 2011
Act II
Terrified that the dead (whose memory she has abused) can live again, Madame Flora (Barbara Dever) cries out: "The dead, the dead never come back!"
photo: David Spirakes
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'Some of the opera's most powerful and touching acting came from Gregg Mozgala as Toby … He's the opera's ultimate tragic victim, and not just because he dies in the end.'
Charleston Today, June 2011
Act II: "Was it you? Tell me, was it you?"
Having shot the innocent Toby (Gregg Mozgala), Madame Flora (Barbara Dever) continues to question him as he lies dying in her arms.
photo: David Spirakes
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'Joseph Flummerfelt's grasp of the score is as sure as is Pascoe's grip on the Guignol.'
The CLog, June 2011

Maestro Joseph Flummerfelt and director-designer John Pascoe on the set of The Medium.
photo: David Spirakes
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